As there are a multitude of crowdfunding sites out there we thought we would make it easier and breakdown some of the more popular options in the fundraising world.

Indiegogo

While Indiegogo (www.indiegogo.com) is essentially a US based site, there are no restrictions to stop Australian businesses and NFPs from using their services – in fact they have a whole section dedicated to verified Non-Profits and community campaigns.

Indiegogo is free to sign up with although once they funds start rolling in they will collect 9% on each donation.  If you reach your funding target, they will then reimburse you 5% of your fees which means you are ultimately paying an overall fee of 4% on all money raised.

Their platform is seemingly simple to navigate so once you have your funding scheme arranged and ready to go, it shouldn’t take you too long to find your way around and publish your project.  Their advice is to be thorough, communicative and transparent in all that you do so that your project is successful and meets its goal.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com) has different aims and is slightly more limited than Indiegogo in the sense that it has more of a creative slant to it.  They look to fund music, film, art, game, design and technology projects rather than general fundraising projects.  Generally speaking this will preclude most NFPs and their fundraising schemes although there may be a small number of projects which would be suitable for Kickstarter and if so, then it would be wise to go down this route as this creative crowdfunding site is very popular with the masses.

Kickstarter has an all or nothing aim – if you don’t meet your target goals, you don’t get your funds, pure and simple.  And at the end they take a 5% cut off the top.

Crowdfunding By Astoundify

If you use WordPress then this crowdfunding plugin by Astoundify might just work well for your purposes.  Features of the plugin include frontend form submission to easily collect campaign information and site compatibility with Paypal.

The plugin works both as a donation plugin and a crowdfunding plugin with no limitations or exclusions.  Backers can pledge specified amounts towards a project and amounts are only collected if a campaign reaches its goal in the time specified.

Whatever your purposes, it will certainly pay to do your research to find which option will work best for you and your NFP organisation.